isfaction. His wife did everything she could to make it appear
that she was delighted by his speedy return.

[Illustration: _Sister Anne_]

On the morrow he demanded the keys. She gave them to him, but with so
trembling a hand that he guessed at once what had happened.

'How comes it,' he said to her, 'that the key of the little room is not
with the others?'

'I must have left it upstairs upon my table,' she said.

'Do not fail to bring it to me presently,' said Blue Beard.

After several delays the key had to be brought. Blue Beard examined it,
and addressed his wife.

'Why is there blood on this key?'

'I do not know at all,' replied the poor woman, paler than death.

'You do not know at all?' exclaimed Blue Beard; 'I know well enough. You
wanted to enter the little room! Well, madam, enter it you shall--you
shall go and take your place among the ladies you have seen there.'

She threw herself at her husband's feet, asking his pardon with tears,
and with all the signs of a true repentance for her disobedience. She
would have softened a rock, in her beauty and distress, but Blue Beard
had a heart harder than any stone.

'You must die, madam,' he said; 'and at once.'

'Since I must die,' she replied, gazing at him with eyes that were wet
with tears, 'give me a little time to say my prayers.'

'I give you one quarter of an hour,' replied Blue Beard, 'but not a
moment longer.'

When the poor girl was alone, she called her sister to her and said:

'Sister Anne'--for that was her name--'go up, I implore you, to the top
of the tower, and see if my brothers are not approaching. They promised
that they would come and visit me to-day. If you see them, make signs to
them to hasten.'

Sister Anne went up to the top of the tower, and the poor unhappy girl
cried out to her from time to time:

'Anne, Sister Anne, do you see nothing coming?'

And Sister Anne replied:

'I see nought but dust in the sun and the green grass growing.'

Presently Blue Beard, grasping a great cutlass, cried out at the top of
his voice:

'Come down quickly, or I shall come upstairs myself.'

'Oh please, one moment more,' called out his wife.

And at the same moment she cried in a whisper:

'Anne, Sister Anne, do you see nothing coming?'

'I see nought but dust in the sun and the green grass growing.'

'Come down at once, I say,' shouted Blue Beard, 'or I will come upstairs
myself.'

'I am coming,' replied his wife.

Then